Observing the immense extent of the
empire, and the numerous wars in which it was engaged, he exercised his
body in warlike exercises, regarding it as his natural means of defence,
while he also studied oratory as the means by which to influence the
people, in a style suited to his own life and character. In his speeches
there were no flowery passages, no empty graces of style, but there was
a plain common sense peculiar to himself, and a depth of sententious
maxims which is said to have resembled Thucydides. One of his speeches
is extant, a funeral oration which he made in public over his son who
died after he had been consul.
II. He was consul five times, and in his first consulship obtained a
triumph over the Ligurians. They were defeated by him and driven with
great loss to take refuge in the Alps, and thus were prevented from
ravaging the neighbouring parts of Italy as they had been wont to do.
When Hannibal invaded Italy, won his first battle at the Trebia, and
marched through Etruria, laying everything waste as he went, the Romans
were terribly disheartened and cast down, and terrible prodigies took
place, some of the usual kind, that is, by lightning, and others of an
entirely new and strange character. It was said that shields of their
own accord became drenched with blood: that at Antium standing corn bled
when it was cut by the reapers; that red-hot stones fell from heaven,
and that the sky above Falerii was seen to open and tablets to fall, on
one of which was written the words "Mars is shaking his arms.
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